Author Henry Kuttner was both a friend and mentor to Ray Bradbury as a young man. In fact, Mr. Kuttner wrote the last 300 or so words to Ray's short story, "The Candle", when Ray was stuck for an ending. Ray asked Mr. Kuttner for permission to use that ending, Mr. Kuttner said yes, and the story appeared in the November, 1942 issue of WEIRD TALES. (Ray did not think much of "The Candle", and said that he thought Mr. Kuttner's ending was the only good part of the story!)

In 1975, a collection called THE BEST OF HENRY KUTTNER was released in hardcover by Doubleday's Science Fiction Book Club, and as a paperback by Ballantine. For anyone interested, the book provides an excellent introduction to Henry Kuttner's fine writing. Ray Bradbury provided a thoughtful introduction to this collection of stories by his old friend, "Henry Kuttner: A Neglected Master". To read that introduction, just click on the link below:

http://adrienhb.free.fr/Ambre/Divers/AZ05-Kuttner.pdf

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For those who might be interested in more information about writer Henry Kuttner, Karen Anderson, wife of author Poul Anderson, published a fan magazine, HENRY KUTTNER: A MEMORIAL SYMPOSIUM, shortly after Mr. Kuttner's death in 1958 at the much too young age of 42. That magazine included the thoughts of several fellow writers and Kuttner admirers, including Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury. For a link to Karen Anderson's Kuttner tribute magazine, click on the link below, and then scroll down:

https://fanac.org/fanzines/Fanthologies/Fantho37.pdf

Ray Bradbury had a number of mentors. To name a few: Leigh Brackett, Edmond Hamilton, Jack Williamson...and Henry Kuttner. I remember once talking to Ray about Henry Kuttner, and Ray saying about Kuttner, "I'm not sure he really liked me." In re-reading Ray Bradbury's introduction to THE BEST OF HENRY KUTTNER (which can be accessed in its entirety in my first posting above), one part had the greatest impact on me. And after re-reading it, I think, despite Ray's reservations, that Henry Kuttner liked Ray very much, by showing him this "tough love":

"I am sure he [Kuttner] found me ridiculous and amusing a good deal of the time. At our first meeting, I was seventeen, which means - in my case, anyway- I was so unsure of myself that I did a lot of running around, shouting and speechifying to hide my confusions and private despairs. Kuttner put up with this for an inordinate number of years and then gave me the best piece of creative advice I ever got.

'Ray,' he said one day, 'do me a favor?'

'What?', I asked.

'Shut up,' he said.

'I beg pardon?'

'You're always running around, grabbing people's elbows, pulling their lapels, shouting your ideas,' Kuttner replied. 'You give away all your steam. No wonder you never finish your stories. You talk them all out. Shut up.'

And shut up I did.

Instead of giving away my stories for free, by mouth, I began to write a story a week..."